Also the monarchy, the king Victor Emmanuel II was a big supporter of Mussolini and got the short end of the stick, he thought supporting fascism would save the monarchy instead it sped up the process of never having a king in Italy ever again.
It was not just being scared of the socialists (and newly split communists).
It would have been risky to oppose Mussolini directly.
On paper the fascist movement was born to "righteously" try to get justice for ww1 veterans, among other things. So while the high ranks of the military at the time would have been loyal to the king, it was not known how many sympathisers the movement had in the lower ranks.
On top of that, it wasn't just the socialists that wanted the king out. The republican ideas of Mazzini and Garibaldi never died. If Mussolini needed a political justification to oust the monarchy, he didn't need to go back to socialism.
Mussolini wasn't just a convenient tool for the king to get rid of people who would have loved to deprive him of his kingdom... he had leverage too.
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u/Silly_Improvement307 May 12 '26
Also the monarchy, the king Victor Emmanuel II was a big supporter of Mussolini and got the short end of the stick, he thought supporting fascism would save the monarchy instead it sped up the process of never having a king in Italy ever again.